TheGreen Monster is a popular nickname for the 37-foot-2-inch-high (11.33 m)left field wall atFenway Park, home to theBoston Red Sox ofMajor League Baseball. The wall is 310 feet (94 m) from home plate at the left-fieldfoul line, making it a popular target for right-handed hitters.[1]
The wall was part of the original ballpark construction of 1912, along Fenway's north side facing Lansdowne Street. It is made of wood and was covered in tin and concrete in 1934. It was then covered with hard plastic in 1976. A manualscoreboard is set into the wall, which has been there, in one form or another, at least as far back as 1914 (see photo at right). The wall was not painted green until 1947; before that, it was covered withadvertisements.
The "Green Monster" designation appeared in print by November 1956,[2] although for much of its history it was simply called "The Wall",[3] an alternate nickname that has endured into the 21st century.[4]
The Green Monster is the highest among the walls in currentMajor League Baseball (MLB) fields, and it is the second highest among all professional baseball fields, includingMinor League Baseball. In 2007, it was surpassed by "The Arch Nemesis"—the left field wall of theindependent baseballWellSpan Park inYork, Pennsylvania—which is approximately 6 inches (15 cm) taller.[5]
Ballparks occupied by professional baseball teams have often featured high fences to hide the field from external viewers, particularly behind open areas of the outfield where bleacher seating is low-lying or non-existent. The wall might also reduce the number of "cheap" home runs due to the barrier's relatively tall height above the playing surface. Fenway's wall serves both purposes. Past ballparks of Fenway's era or even later which featured high fences in play includedBaker Bowl,Washington Park,Ebbets Field,League Park,Griffith Stadium,Shibe Park, and more recently,Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Fenway is the last of the exceptionally high-walled major-league ballparks. In modern ballparks, some relatively high walls have been constructed for their novelty rather than by necessity.
During 2001 and 2002, the Green Monster's height record was temporarily surpassed by the center field wall atRiverfront Stadium (then known asCinergy Field for sponsorship reasons) inCincinnati. During construction of the adjacentGreat American Ball Park, a large section of seats was removed from Riverfront's center field area to make room and a 40-foot (12 m) black wall was erected as a temporarybatter's eye. The entire wall was in play. This new wall was often called the "Black Monster".[6] When Riverfront Stadium was demolished in 2002, the Green Monster reclaimed the record.
In honor of the wall, the Red Sox' mascot isWally the Green Monster.[7] In May 2025, the Red Sox announced a newCity Connect jersey which pays homage to the Green Monster, featuring a solid green color and lettering in the same font as the letters on the wall.[8]
The wall is 37 feet 2 inches (11.33 m) tall.[9] At 231 feet (70 m) wide,[10][a] it has an overallsurface area of 8,585.5 square feet (797.62 m2).
The wall is signed as being 310 feet from home plate at the left-field foul line, although for many years, until May 1995, it was signed as being 315 feet.[11][b] The posted distance in metric was not adjusted from 96 meters (315 ft) to 94.5 meters (310 ft) until 1998.[13] The wall is signed as being 379 feet (116 m) deep near the ballpark's flagpole in center field,[14] where a vertical yellow line denotes the rightmost limit of the wall that is in play. A portion of the wall continues behind the flagpole, but a ball hit to this area (striking the wall to the right of the yellow line) is considered a home run.[15]
By contrast, the right-field wall is less than 6 feet (1.8 m) tall. While it is signed as being only 302 feet (92 m) from home plate at thePesky Pole along the right-field foul line, it sharply angles back and is signed as being 380 feet (120 m) deep at the right end of thebullpens.[14] This makes the overall expanse of Fenway's right field significantly larger than left field.
The Green Monster is famous for preventing home runs on manyline drives that would clear the walls of other ballparks. A side effect of this is to increase the prevalence ofdoubles, since this is the most common result when the ball is hit off the wall (often referred to as a "wallball double"). The major-league record for doubles in a season was set by Red Sox playerEarl Webb, who hit 67 doubles in 1931,[16] although only 33 of them were hit at Fenway.[c] This record has rarely been challenged, and no player has hit 60 or more doubles in a season since 1936.[16]
Someleft fielders, predominantly those with significant Fenway experience, have become adept at fielding caroms off the wall to throw runners out at second base or hold the batter to asingle. Compared with other current major-league parks, the wall's placement creates a comparatively shallow left field, and many long fly balls that could be caught in a larger park rebound off the Green Monster for base hits.
While the wall turns many would-be line-drive homers into doubles, it also allows some high yet shallow fly balls to clear the field of play for a home run, one notable example beingBucky Dent's home run in the1978 American League East tie-breaker game.[18][19] As described byDon Baylor, who played for the Red Sox in 1986 and 1987: "High fly balls that are outs almost anywhere else will be a home run here, but low line drives that are home runs almost anywhere else will only be a double here, maybe even a single."[20]
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From 1912 to 1933, a 10-foot-high (3.0 m) mound formed an incline in front of the Green Monster,[21] extending from the left-field foul pole to the center field flag pole. This earthwork formed a "terrace", a common feature of ballparks of the day (where a dirt-surfacedwarning track would normally be today), whose purpose was to make up the difference in grade between street level and field level, as with Cincinnati'sCrosley Field. It also served to double as a seating area to handle overflow crowds, another common practice of that era.
As a result of the terrace, when overflow crowds were not seated atop it, a left fielder in Fenway Park had to play the territory running uphill. Boston's first star left fielder,Duffy Lewis, mastered the skill so well that the area became known as "Duffy's Cliff".[21] In contrast, rotund outfielderBob Fothergill, known by the indelicate nicknames of "Fats" or "Fatty", reportedly once chased a ball up the terrace, slipped and fell, and rolled downhill.
In 1934, Red Sox ownerTom Yawkey arranged to flatten the ground in left field so that Duffy's Cliff no longer existed, and it became part of the lore of Fenway Park.
Long after the much-higher location manual scoreboard fromc.1914 existed (as seen in the 1914 photo), the placement of the modern "ground-level" manual scoreboard occurred in 1934. It forms the lower half of the Green Monster and is still updated by hand from behind the wall throughout the game. The American League scores are also updated from behind the wall. The National League scores need to be updated from the front of the wall between innings.[22] There is also a board which shows the currentAmerican League East standings. There are 127 slots in the wall and a team of three score keepers move around two-pound (0.9 kg), 13-by-16-inch (33 by 41 cm) plates to represent the score. Yellow numbers are used to represent in-inning scores and white numbers are used to represent final inning tallies. The numbers of the current pitchers weigh three pounds (1.4 kg) and measure 16 by 16 inches (41 by 41 cm).[23]
Carlton Fisk's "body English" when he hit hisgame-winning home run in Game 6 of the1975 World Series, "waving" the ball fair, was captured on a TV camera stationed in the scoreboard.
In the vertical white lines of the American League section of the scoreboard,Morse code representing the initials of former ownersThomas A. Yawkey andJean R. Yawkey is visible.[24] As shown in various photos of the wall, the patterns are ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ (TAY) and ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄ ▄▄▄ ▄▄▄ (JRY), each of which runs from top to bottom in a white stripe.[25]
Comprising yet another quirk, a ladder is attached to the Green Monster, extending from near the upper-left portion of the scoreboard, 13 feet (4.0 m) above ground, to the top of the wall. Previously, members of the grounds crew would use the ladder to retrieve home run balls from the netting hung above the wall. After the net was removed for the addition of the Monster seats, the ladder ceased to have any real function, yet it remains in place as a historic relic.
The placement of the ladder is noteworthy given the fact that it is in fair territory; it is the only such ladder in the major leagues. On various occasions, a batted ball has struck the ladder during game play.Carl Yastrzemski, who played for the Red Sox for 23 seasons including over 1900 games in left field,[26] highlighted the ladder's role in aninside-the-park home run by Red Sox first basemanDick Stuart, generally regarded as slow-footed.[27] On August 19, 1963, Stuart hit a high fly ball that ricocheted off the Green Monster—Yastrzemski said it hit the ladder,[27] while contemporary newspaper reports noted that it "skinned off the wall" or "struck a ledge on top of the scoreboard"[28][29]— and then off the head of Cleveland outfielderVic Davalillo, before rolling far enough away to allow Stuart to score.[30] An account of another inside-the-park home run that hit off the ladder, appearing in an October 1986 column byDave Anderson ofThe New York Times,[31] reportedly hit by visiting playerJim Lemon during the 1950s with Red Sox defendersTed Williams in left field andJimmy Piersall in center field, lacks detail or contemporary mention in newspapers.[d]
A common myth that has perpetuated is that if a ball strikes the ladder and then bounces over the wall or out of play, the batter will be awarded a ground-rule triple. There is no such rule in theground rules at Fenway, nor in any major-league ballpark.[36] Fenway's ground rules state: "Fair ball striking the ladder below top of left field wall and bounding out of park: Two Bases."[15]
In 1936, the Red Sox installed a 23-foot (7.0 m) net above the Monster in order to protect the storefronts on adjoining Lansdowne Street from home run balls. The net remained until the 2002–03 offseason, when the team's new ownership constructed a new seating section atop the wall to accommodate 274 fans. Wildly popular, these "Monster seats" were part of a larger expansion plan for Fenway Park seating. The Red Sox later added a smaller seating section in 2005, dubbed the "Nation's Nest," located between the main seating section and the center field scoreboard.
After the wall was painted green in 1947, advertisements did not appear on the wall until the late 1990s when the1999 MLB All-Star Game at Fenway was being promoted. Various ads have appeared above the scoreboard since then, such as forthe Jimmy Fund,W. B. Mason,Covidien, andFoxwoods Resort Casino. LargeCoca-Cola bottles, placed on the left light tower in 1997,[37] were a target for power-hitters. These three-dimensional advertisements were taken down before the 2008 season,[38] when anLED sign was built above the new left-field upper-deck seats. As a lead up to his 500th career home run,Manny Ramirez's home run count was tallied on the bottom of the light tower. Ads beside the manual scoreboard were added when the scoreboard was expanded. Part of the overall view above the left-field wall is theBoston Citgo sign, located outside of Fenway inKenmore Square.
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The Green Monster stands 37.167 feet tall and is only 310 feet from home plate.
The 'Green Monster' is the team's pet name for the very high fence at Fenway Park.
...on the strength of his 35th home run over the Wall in the sixth.
The Green Monster stands 37.167 feet tall and is only 310 feet from home plate.
42°20′49.6″N71°05′50.4″W / 42.347111°N 71.097333°W /42.347111; -71.097333
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